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The Crime of Apartheid

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International Conflict and Security Law

Abstract

South Africa’s apartheid system (1948–1994) gained notoriety not only as an offensive, racist and oppressive domestic policy, but as a crime against humanity. Historically and conceptually apartheid should not be seen in temporally restrictive terms. It should rather be seen as a continuation and systematisation of settler-colonialism in Southern Africa. Apartheid as a criminal phenomenon is not parochially restricted to Southern Africa, but is now recognised as a crime against humanity, attracting criminal liability wherever it is committed. The criminalisation of apartheid as a crime against humanity prior to the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is not uncontested, however that debate now seems moot in light of the current state of international criminal law.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Lave 1994, at 484; Giliomee 2003a, at 495.

  2. 2.

    The Cape of Good Hope was under Dutch control from 1652 to 1795. From 1795 to 1803 the Cape was occupied by British forces, but on 19 January 1806 the Cape finally surrendered to the British. In terms of the Convention of 13 August 1814 between Great Britain and the United Provinces of the Netherlands the Cape was ceded to Britain. The Cape Colony was thus established as part of the growing British Empire. For the text of the treaty, see Eybers 1918, at 19.

  3. 3.

    The Afrikaner secular intelligentsia (including HF Verwoerd and others at Stellenbosch University) articulated the intellectual foundation and justification for apartheid, which historian Herman Giliomee described as a kind of ‘racist paternalism and trusteeship’, that is, the worldview that infantilised black people as unsophisticated, undeveloped, and in need of guidance and direction from whites. Giliomee 2003b, at 373–392.

  4. 4.

    On the role of legal academics in the formation and perpetuation of the apartheid legal system, see Mcquid-Mason 1998, at 102–103.

  5. 5.

    For more on apartheid beyond the Southern African context, see Dugard 2013, at 867–914.

  6. 6.

    Cape of Good Hope Ordinance 1 of 1835; Eybers 1918, at 38.

  7. 7.

    Eybers 1918, at 38.

  8. 8.

    Cecil John Rhodes, Speech at the Second Rereading of the Glen Grey Act to the Cape Parliament, 30 July 1894, available at https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/glen_grey_speech.pdf.

  9. 9.

    Madlalate 2019, at 197–201.

  10. 10.

    For UN resolutions condemning the Bantustan policies, see GA Res 2775, 26 UN GAOR, Supp (No 29) 39, UN Doc A/8429 (1971); GA Res 3411, 30 UN GAOR, Supp (No 34) 35, UN Doc A/10034 (1975). See also Richardson 1978, at 185–186.

  11. 11.

    Quoted in Lave 1994, at 498–499.

  12. 12.

    Act 30 of 1950.

  13. 13.

    https://www.thoughtco.com/apartheid-quotes-bantu-education-43436 (accessed 2 March 2020).

  14. 14.

    Article 1(1)(b).

  15. 15.

    Kemp 2017, at 422.

  16. 16.

    See, for instance, GA Res 2189; GA Res 2202; GA Res 39/72A; GA Res 2074.

  17. 17.

    UNSC Res 392, 19 June 1976; and subsequently, UNSC Res 418 (1977); UNSC Res 473 (1980); UNSC Res 591 (1986).

  18. 18.

    UNTS, Vol. 754, p. 73.

  19. 19.

    Article I(b).

  20. 20.

    Report of the International Law Commission, 43rd Secs, UN GAOR, Supp No 10, at 255, UN Doc A/46/10 (1991).

  21. 21.

    Reproduced in: Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1996, vol. II, Part Two.

  22. 22.

    Article 18(f).

  23. 23.

    27 June 1981, OAU doc CAB /LEG/67/3 rev. 5, 21 ILM 58 (1982).

  24. 24.

    Eden 2014, at 184.

  25. 25.

    Eden 2014, at 185.

  26. 26.

    Article II of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973). Reproduced in Van den Wyngaert 2011, at 413–414.

  27. 27.

    Rome Statute of the ICC, Article 7(1)(j).

  28. 28.

    Article 7(2)(h).

  29. 29.

    Eden 2014, at 189.

  30. 30.

    TRC Report (1998) Vol. I, at 94.

  31. 31.

    Eden 2014, at 178–179 and 191.

  32. 32.

    Eden 2014, at 179.

  33. 33.

    S v Basson 2005 (1) SA 171 (CC) at para 37.

  34. 34.

    S v Basson para 37.

  35. 35.

    For a comprehensive discussion, see Gevers 2018, at 25–49.

  36. 36.

    Rodrigues v National Director of Public Prosecutions, Case no 76755/2018, 3 June 2019 (Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg). In this case, the high court rejected the applicant’s application for a permanent stay of prosecution of an apartheid-era murder case. The killing of the victim was linked to the apartheid state’s nefarious activities in the 1970s.

  37. 37.

    TRC Report (1998) Vol I, at 94.

  38. 38.

    TRC Report (1998) Vol I, at 94, fn 30.

  39. 39.

    See commentary by Kajaal Ramjathan-Keogh. Daily Maverick, 21 February 2020. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-02-21-south-africa-apartheid-crimes-against-humanity-and-the-rule-of-law-quo-vadis/.

  40. 40.

    Skinner 2019, at 137.

  41. 41.

    https://africanactivist.msu.edu/organization.php?name=Special%20Committee%20Against%20Apartheid. More than 50 of the most important statements and records of the Committee can be accessed at: https://africanactivist.msu.edu/browse_results.php?category=media&member=Documents&org=Special%20Committee%20Against%20Apartheid&.

  42. 42.

    Skinner 2019, at 139.

  43. 43.

    Atadjanov 2019, at 19.

  44. 44.

    Atadjanov 2019, at 19.

  45. 45.

    Atadjanov 2019, at 19–20.

  46. 46.

    Atadjanov 2019, at 27.

  47. 47.

    For the author’s working hypothesis, see Atadjanov 2019, at 29–30.

  48. 48.

    https://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/afrikaans-identity-under-huge-pressure--fw-de-kler.

  49. 49.

    Atadjanov 2019, at 143.

  50. 50.

    Atadjanov 2019, at 142–145.

  51. 51.

    Draft articles on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity, with Commentaries (2019), Adopted by the International Law Commission at its seventy-first session, in 2019, and submitted to the General Assembly as part of the Commissioners’ report covering the work of that session (A/74/10). For the Report with commentaries to the draft articles, see Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 2019, Vol II, Part Two.

  52. 52.

    Draft articles on Crimes Against Humanity, Article 2(1)(j).

  53. 53.

    Draft articles on Crimes Against Humanity, Commentary on Article 2, para 37.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Law, University of Derby, Derby, United Kingdom

    Gerhard Kemp

  2. Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Gerhard Kemp

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, KIMEP University, Almaty, Kazakhstan

    Sergey Sayapin

  2. School of Law, KIMEP University, Almaty, Kazakhstan

    Rustam Atadjanov

  3. National Law School of India, Pune, India

    Umesh Kadam

  4. Law and Social Sciences, University of Derby, Derby, UK

    Gerhard Kemp

  5. School of Law, KIMEP University, Almaty, Kazakhstan

    Nicolás Zambrana-Tévar

  6. Bristol Law School, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

    Noëlle Quénivet

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Kemp, G. (2022). The Crime of Apartheid. In: Sayapin, S., Atadjanov, R., Kadam, U., Kemp, G., Zambrana-Tévar, N., Quénivet, N. (eds) International Conflict and Security Law. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-515-7_48

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